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Film

Francine Stock

City of Ghosts

Released on 21st July

For more than three years, the Syrian city Raqqa has been under Islamic State (IS) control. The group has allowed very little footage of the suffering it has caused to emerge. Matthew Heineman’s documentary about the anonymous activist-journalist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, who distribute footage from colleagues in the city from their base abroad, is both intimate and devastating. Through indistinct conversations and snippets of video, these refugees must construct both the political narrative of their city and discover if relatives have been killed. As with his Oscar nominated Cartel Land, Heineman gets extraordinary access. This is a moving and provocative study of media tactics—from all sides—and the cost to humanity.

About Prospect Magazine

In Prospect’s July issue: Steve Richards, Rachel Sylvester and Shiv Malik—as well as Chris Hanretty and Julian Glover—cover the fallout from the recent general election. Richards looks at how the assumptions of centrist politics were upended and how Labour managed to stun the nation—a point that Chris Hanretty explores in more detail, explaining how Corbyn turned the tide for social democracy. Sylvester questions how Theresa May managed to squander her majority—Julian Glover says it wasn’t just May’s failure, the ideas were flawed, too. Shiv Malik explores the remarkable surge in the youth vote and says parties can no longer ignore their concerns.
Also in this issue: Dexter Dias argues that to understand terrorism we need to better understand human nature, Paul Wallace looks at the state of the state and asks whether the government is capable of fulfilling large scale changes to the way the state works and Sam Tanenhaus profiles Mike Pence—should we be worried about him becoming the next president?